AR Wireless HP
Antec Sonata
MSI K7N2 Delta
IceMat Mousepad
Crucial Gizmo!
Steelpad 4S Pad
ABIT IS7 865PE
ATI AiW 9000 Pro
OCZ PC3200 Plat

Installation

Installation time. With my rig already outside of a case, installation was made pretty simple for me. However there were a few obstacles. First I removed the back plate from the case because my motherboard does not have a standard ATX back. But I took a few picture of it anyway because it isn't just a normal back plate. It has a piece of metal making it much more thick then the standard ones, and because of this it is significantly heavier. It was nice to have a heavy back plate even though I didn't use it. Standard ones are so flimsy, but this one could be handled less delicately which was nice.

Here was my computer in its usual form. The parts all rested on a Lian-Li PC62 motherboard tray, and I ran it out of the case to get cooler temps. Before I could install the motherboard, I had to move this big gang of cables out of the way. All the power cables, the front FireWire/USB, and sound cables were all neatly wrapped, but still all had to be moved out of the way so I could get the motherboard inside the case. Brining it up again, if the Sonata had a removable motherboard tray, this wouldn't have been nearly as big of a problem.

After they were moved, I installed the supplied motherboard standoffs into the appropriate locations. It had been a while since I had used standoffs, I've been used to using the Addtronics and Lian-Li specialized ones that require no screwing. This is what it looked like after installing the motherboard:

Now to tell you how annoying it was. Since there is no motherboard tray at all for the case, installing screw on the top and the bottom of the motherboard was a pain in the neck. There was only about an inch of space on the top and the bottom in which I had to get my hands into to install things. In this picture you can see the distance between the bottom and side. It's one inch or so from the bottom, and one and a half inches or so from the front of the case, a very tight squeeze. While installing the motherboard I had to use tricks like screwing in the screws with my hand near the tip of the screwdriver to guide it. The screwdriver handle in the mean time was knocking against the side of the case.

Also there isn't much room in this case for larger motherboards. I have a feeling that dual processor motherboards wouldn't quite make it inside. The harddrive rack is a wall that would not allow the installation of one without some annoying modifications.

The next section I worked on was installing the add-on cards; this was also a tedious task. The back plane for installing all the cards has semi-circles between all of them to insure you install all of them in straight and correctly. However my cards aren't perfectly sized so it took a little work to get them in there. Also, the screws were spaced so close together that I would have to remove the screw below the card slot I was installing to, just so that I could get it in. If you don't get what I'm saying, look at how the screw below the FireWire add-on card is ON TOP of the fire FireWire card.

I repeated the task for my Promise TX2 raid card, and the Geforce 4. After the add-on cards were all installed I moved onto installing the harddrives. This was a much easier task to do. All of the harddrive trays have rubber grommets absorbing vibrations from the drives, and all the drive trays require no tools to install or de-install. The screws are specialized so that they cover the entire rubber grommet. I figured that this was to ensure that the screws wouldn't chew into the rubber. The second picture shows the harddrive with one screw off so you can see the full grommet and how the screw covers it entirely.

Sliding the trays into the harddrive rack makes a satisfying click letting me know that the harddrive is installed all the way in, and is correct. I quickly realized that the harddrives could be installed either way on the trays, and it make me thing about which way they should be installed.

I could rout the cables over like this:

Or I could rout them under like this:

I quickly realized that it would be much more beneficial to rout the cables underneath to maximize cleanliness and to perhaps make air flow better throughout the case. I later looked through the manual and it does not state whether you should mount them one-way or the other. Installation of the molex connectors and the parallel cables was much more difficult to do this way, but I found it to be much more satisfying. After installing it the way I did, I'm pretty sure Antec intended for them to be installed with the parallel connector side facing the open case, but I decided I liked this way much more anyway.

I then installed my single optical drive, and then though to myself, "OH NO! I didn't get any 5 ¼" drive bay rails!!" And then I realized something. On the back of each 5 ¼" bay cover is where the rails are kept. The installation for the 5 ¼" items also went smoothly. The rails attach to either side of the device and then simply slide in. This also generates a satisfying click to let you know the device is all the way in.

I then went ahead and plugged in all the motherboard connectors such as the power switch, reset switch, etc. and then plugged in all the molex and parallel connectors. All the standard stuff was very easy, the difficult section is plugging in the front sound or FireWire/USB connectors. These are a real hassle especially because I had to look at my motherboard manual AND the manual for the case. Someone should really make a standard for those so that they could become much easier to work with.

With installation complete I though I would give a money shot, and show the cable management inside. I did ALL of the management with ONLY what I was provided with. A twist tie, a rubber band, and a reusable zip tie. I was basically able to rout all the cabling behind everything, very convenient.

Next Page - Experiences and Conclusion

Previous Page - The Antec Sonata